Director of Rural Broadband Program exits, warning of “deterioration” of satellite internet
Evan Feinman directed a $42.5 billion broadband interest, access and deployment (Bead) program designed to bring high-speed internet access to rural areas. ProPublica’S Craig Silverman. In an email to employees, Silverman shared the screenshot on Bluesky, with Feinman warning that the new government proposed changes “benefiting the slower technology that pays bills for households at higher costs” in order to queue up Elon Musk’s Pockets.
Bead was founded in 2021 and new Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently announced that the Commerce Department would overhaul the plan, which he said “has not connected a person to the internet” due to the previous government’s handling of the plan. In a statement, Lutnick called for a “technologically neutral stance” that would eliminate preference for faster fiber connections and open the door to a shift toward satellite internet, as Elon Musk’s Starlink offers. Lutnick also slams the “wake-up task, preference for certain technologies, and heavy regulations.”
In an email shared on Sunday, Feinman urged colleagues to speak out to remove “unnecessary requirements” but warned against transferring from fiber. The most important thing, he wrote:
The new administration appears to want to make changes to ignore the clear direction set by Congress, reduce the number of U.S. homes and businesses that get fiber connections, and increase the number of satellite connections. The extent of this shift remains unknown, but regardless of scale, it has done harm to rural and small-town America. The internet stranded in all or part of the rural American country so that we can make the richest people in the world richer, a series of betrayals in Washington.
